


what lies within the walls

by hyunchans



Series: ethereal, almost ghostly [1]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Agoraphobia, Anxiety Disorder, Cults, Demons, Drugs, Ghosts, Horror, M/M, Masturbation, Medication, Mentions of Anxiety, Sleeping Pills, Smoking, Spookfest, Stalking, mentions of cults and rituals, old apartment, past changbin, something is always watching, very brief sexual content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:41:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26963071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyunchans/pseuds/hyunchans
Summary: jisung is suffering from agoraphobia. upon returning home from a doctor's appointment, weird things start happening in his apartment (that he can't exactly leave) and its dark history is slowly revealed.
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Seo Changbin
Series: ethereal, almost ghostly [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1981093
Comments: 10
Kudos: 48
Collections: Stray Kids SpookFest





	what lies within the walls

**Author's Note:**

> spookfest prompt #2: a used to love living alone, he used to love being alone. this changed when he started hearing noises in the middle of the night. food disappearing and every morning he found new bruises in his kin. he thought installing security cameras would make things easier but this only made them worse.
> 
> here is the [pinterest](https://www.pinterest.nz/hyunchans00/ethereal-almost-ghostly/) board i have created for the series for extra vieby goodness!

_Agoraphobia: an anxiety disorder in which you fear and avoid places and situations that might cause you panic._

That’s what the doctor had diagnosed him with when he suffered an unexplainable set of panic attacks in the public eye over three days of the spring break. Jisung could barely do anything in public, hated being around others – the thought of any interaction that wasn’t absolutely needed set his skin on fire. He ended up emailing his university to put his studies on hold for the semester because he just couldn’t muster up the courage to try and battle a panic attack at any given moment.

So – agoraphobia.

Basically, social anxiety but in a way amplified by one thousand – at least that is how Jisung felt about it. The doctor had insisted on referring Jisung to a therapist, but they couldn’t force him to and the last thing Jisung was wanting to do was sit in a tiny room with a stranger for an hour who basically just wanted to dissect him bit by bit while draining his bank account.

_No fucking thank-you._

Jisung had managed to get an uber home, breathe through the discomfort that came with riding in a stranger’s car – he didn’t really have any other options in the middle of a thunderstorm. The rain was incredibly loud against the glass windows of the car, so loud that it sounded like any droplet that was to come could shatter it and the glass would explode all over Jisung’s torso. He had to tear his eyes away from the window, focus them on his feet that were bouncing against the car floor. Finally, they reached his apartment – and thank god he didn’t take a taxi and had to deal with payment. He simply got to leave the car and run up the stairs to his apartment complexes entrance and punch in his code followed by scanning his swipe card. He loved the extra steps of security – it made him feel safer about unwanted guests finding their way into his complex.

When he reached his door at the end of the sixth-floor hallway, he shrugged off his sodden shoes instantly as he closed the door behind him. It had always astounded him that a university student like himself was allowed to rent this place. Maybe it was partly to do with his parents paying the rent for him, and landlord seemed to like him and never had any complaints. The apartment was apparently fifty years old and had been refurbished in recent years to fit a more modern aesthetic, but the landlord had insisted on leaving some of its original furnishings in place. Things such as the kitchen remained somewhat untouched except for a new oven and fridge, the wooden furnishings scratched Jisung’s skin, but he loved it – it grounded him when he needed it the most.

The most interesting aspect of the apartment, however, was its previous inhabitants.

It had remained empty for the past ten years before Jisung due to some… odd happenings. The landlord had told him one night while dropping off a new set of keys and cards that the previous inhabitants were cult members who were eventually evicted after the police were called on them performing one of their rituals. The neighbours had told the landlord about the ungodly screams and noises that came from the apartment that night and admitted that it spooked them greatly.

It didn’t bother Jisung one bit because he liked the macabre – hell, he _loved_ it. He’d even go as far as calling it _comforting_ that people would leave the apartment alone due to what had happened, and Jisung would be left to his own devices peacefully. The first thing he does when he enters his bedroom is flop onto the bed and throw an arm out to scramble for the cigarette packet on his nightstand. When he can’t find it, he sits up groggily and looks around the many surfaces in his room.

No cigarette packet in sight.

Jisung grumbles as he pulls himself from the bed, and through the hallway to the kitchen.

“I swear I put them there this morning,” he grumbles to himself. He begins rifling through the kitchen draws, catching a few splinters in his fingers as he does so. Finally, at the bottom of the knife drawer, he finds the packet somewhat crumpled up with a couple missing.

“Hmm. Maybe I smoked more than I thought this morning,” he says to himself as he opens the sliding door to the small balcony attached to his apartment. Smoking had been one of the few consistent habits he had picked up to help curb his anxiety even though he knew it was bad for him. The small sticks had become a custom item in his life and he couldn’t go a few hours before sliding another one between his lips. He picked up his phone and his finger hovered over his only text conversation saved in his phone. He shakes his head and exhales the last puff of the cigarette before stubbing it out on the ashtray he keeps in the corner of the balcony.

He knows it would be a bad idea to send another text, it just wouldn’t matter. Jisung was better off but sometimes he couldn’t leave things alone even if they were bad for him.

When he closes the balcony door behind him, he hears the faint closing of a door and gathers that his neighbors had arrived home from work. By this time it was the late afternoon and Jisung was becoming dreary, dragging his feet across the floor to the bathroom’s medicine cabinet. He glances at the clock – 4:37pm it reads – and glares at the bottles of pills laid out in front of him. He takes two of the lorazepam with a handful of water and takes himself to his bed. He doesn’t bother closing any of the curtains – it will help him wake up easier with all the natural light shining through. As he waits for the sleeping pills to kick in he finds his fingers navigating their way back to that one conversation he constantly reads over and over again.

He swears he didn’t press send as the drugs kicked in and he drifted into a deep slumber. When the sunlight pulls him from his dreams at nine the following morning he frowns as the phone lay next to him. The screen had stayed on the entire night and was on five percent battery, and to his surprise his finger must have slipped as there was a message sent on his end that he swears he didn’t send. Three simple words that held more weight than he wishes they did, but there they were plastered across the screen.

_I miss you._

✰ 

Jisung knows he shouldn’t have, but he did anyway. After the fourth cup of coffee, he was a jittering mess and bounding about the apartment like a child on a sugar high. After he sent that text to Changbin last night he needed a distraction – getting high on coffee and cleaning the apartment seemed like the most logical thing to do. After three hours of cleaning every nook and cranny of the apartment, he collapsed onto the couch in a sweaty mess. He felt sick from all the coffee, and the crash was hitting him harder than any hangover could. He could barely manage to move himself to bed and ended up crashing on the couch. He slept soundlessly for six hours until he wakes up to a muffled knocking on his front door. He sits up slowly, checking the time on his phone.

**2:33 am.**

He wanders to the front door and slowly puts his eyes to the peephole that lets him see who is outside. When he sees no-one, he scratches his head and adjusts his boxers as he settles back down onto the couch. His boxers are giving him grief due to the unwelcome boner in his pants. He grumbled as he began to rub his hand against his length over the top of his boxers. Slowly but surely Jisung works himself right up, mewling into the couch and furiously fucking into his hand. Suddenly, there is six loud knocks on the door making his breath catch in his throat and his hand fly away from his dick. He angrily stands from his spot, pulling his boxers back over his crotch and bending down to look through the peephole.

Again, no-one is there. A strange ache envelopes Jisung’s body and he walks back to the couch, pulling a blanket over his legs and never taking his eyes off the door. When he eventually starts to fall asleep there is faint knocking once more. This time he chooses to ignore it, having had enough of whatever kid was playing pranks on him for the night.

✰

The next morning Jisung decided to have a nice long, hot, shower. He places the bathmat down in front of the shower to stand on after and climbs into the hot stream of water. It feels so good on his skin, on his hair he hadn’t washed in a week. He spent a good half hour underneath the water, and he carefully placed his wet feet onto the bathmat after turning off the showerhead. He places more of his weight on his left foot and due to it the floorboard underneath it creaks loudly.

“That’s strange,” Jisung mumbles. The apartment may be old and Jisung hadn’t long moved in but there shouldn’t be loose floorboards unless the builders missed something when they were refurbishing the place. He pulls the bathmat to the side and lays his towel across the rail next to the shower. He presses his hand against the floorboard until he can feel the spot that creaked and finds a corner of it loose. He digs his fingers underneath and pries - only to see how loose it was. To his surprise - and dismay - the floorboard pulls away easily revealing a dusty book tucked to the side. Jisung frowns and almost doesn't want to touch it. The suddenly warm apartment feels cold and he doesn't feel alone. He reaches into the floor, grabbing hold of the dusty thing, cringing as his damp fingers are coated with the sludge forming from the dust coming into contact with water.

When he rubs the dust off the front cover his eyes bulge as the title is finally revealed and the history of the apartment falls into place.

_How To Speak With the Dead: a Practical Handbook._

Jisung throws the book to the side and grabs for his phone on the bathroom sink. He navigates himself to the cheapest online shop he can find and doesn’t hesitate adding a set of five home security cameras to his cart. An uneasy feeling washes over him, a feeling of being watched from the area by the shower curtain. He raises his head from his phone and catches what looks like the final spot of dust being blown off the book. What shortly follows is the sound of a fingernail scratching against the spine.

“What in the fuck,” Jisung cusses, slamming the bathroom door shut behind him. His finger presses the _buy now_ button and his order goes through automatically. Ignoring the fact he is in the nude, he carefully makes his way back to his bedroom while taking notice of all the small areas someone could be hiding.

“This must be a prank. This _has_ to be a prank,” he whispers to himself.

He shuts his bedroom door after he enters, and fumbles for some clean clothes. The best he can find is sweatpants with a wine stain still on them from months ago and one of the loose tees Changbin had left him with. He grimaces as he pulls on the memory-filled t-shirt and sits down with his back against his bedroom door. He pulls up his and Changbin’s text conversation and types out a brief message while talking to himself.

“This is stupid. I shouldn’t be texting him. This is all in my head. My anxiety is making me hear and see things. I’m just spooked. Everything is fine.”

He loves living alone. He _does._ But something was certainly getting underneath his skin and he couldn’t shake the feeling he was being watched. The website said that the camera’s would arrive within forty-eight hours so he just had to wait it out. No matter how hard he tries to convince himself otherwise, his mind gravitates back to the book in the bathroom and he is more inclined to finishing his message to Changbin.

“The least he will do is not reply. He _was_ my boyfriend once after all,” he tells himself.

His voice continues to shake as his finger hovers over send.

_Can you come over? I really need a friend right now and I'm scared to be alone._

**Author's Note:**

> this will be released and finished over the space of the month as this lil writer has been dealing with a lot and didn't want to half-arse this story!! i hope you enjoyed and any comments and kudos are so greatly appreciated.
> 
> links to my socials:  
> [1\. twitter](https://twitter.com/hyvnchns) if anyone would like to follow for updates, and sneak peeks on wips and such, or even just to scream and cry over skz  
> [2\. cc](https://curiouscat.qa/hyvnchns) if you prefer anonymity! and i also take requests :)


End file.
